Oh man, I really hope this isn't becoming a new trend, otherwise it might become funny thing to watch others, how they shake their mobile phones to navigate through the menus or even entering a text message.
However, InvenSense, yesterday announced a gyroscope-based solution for handsets that can enable easier and more intuitive user interaction through hand motions.

Sounds similar to what Nintendo plans with their new gaming console (what was the name?).

Motion sensing has taken on significant importance in mobile devices as users seek easier and more intuitive ways of interacting with a growing assortment of fixed and mobile media, from small-screen mobile handsets with web browsers and speed dialers to music players, and even large-screen video games, says InvenSense. And continues: Using hand gestures or body motion to navigate and control 2-D and 3-D digital space offers a natural and more universal interface tool as well as a more enjoyable user experience.

InvenSense's IDG-300 dual-axis gyroscope die, measuring 3.5mm x 3.5mm x 1mm, combined with an off-the-shelf three-axis accelerometer, can be packaged together to enable a tiny, integrated and low-cost five-axis motion sensing solution. Furthermore, this configuration, when combined with an external Z-axis gyroscope, offers a complete IMU solution suitable for many other consumer applications. Such a complete configuration is not economically possible using other solutions available today, but will be possible in the future with InvenSense's technology.

As I said, if this becomes the new trend for mobile devices, bye bye joysticks. And now imagine you add speech recognition to such a device. Than you can talk and shake it. LOL... :-D Call me old-school but I still prefer keypad and joysticks instead of gyroscope- or voice recognition-based solutions.

Hehehe... Nice... Even I played with a tilt control for Pocket PCs one time ([selfurl=http://www.theunwired.net/?itemid=1815]see my article from the 3GSM Congress here[/selfurl]) where i-mate hat a motion control show case to remote control a car. Was a nice show case and fun to play with but as I said in my initial posting, personally - I wouldn't use it for navigating through the menus of my mobile devices. Sounds way too complicated.

Posted by Christopher on 30.06.06 - 10:17:13

Hi Arne,

Check out the following link. This phone has been sold in Taiwan and Thailand for quite a while.